What’s the American Songbook, Anyway? (Let’s Clear That Up First)

We spend a lot of time celebrating the charm, wit, and staying power of the American Songbook, but before we wax poetic, let’s get the basics down. We hear two questions more than any others: Why the Songbook? And... what is it?

Let’s handle the second question first. When we talk about the Great American Songbook, we don’t mean a dusty book forgotten inside a piano bench. Think of it more as a living playlist—an unofficial collection of American popular songs and jazz standards, mostly written between the 1920s and the 1950s. Think Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Hart, Harold Arlen, and so many more. These weren’t just songwriters; they were the creators of American popular music. A novel combination of composer and poet.

Tin Pan Alley, the neighborhood that brought the Great American Songbook to life (photo: Wikipedia)

The songs they wrote—performed by legends like Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Billie Holiday—have been sung, reimagined, and kept alive through countless performances. They’re not just oldies. They’re the songs. The kind you somehow know by heart, even if you can’t remember when you first heard them.

Words Worth Holding On To

Sure, there’s plenty of smart, snappy writing out there—modern pop songs, poetry, memes, you name it. But nothing else hits quite like the American Songbook. The lyrics aren’t just catchy; they’re brilliant, and they get to the heart of what it’s like to be human.

It’s actually kind of wild: so many of these lyricists were first-generation immigrants, writing in English as their second (or even third) language. Still, they captured the essence of American life and emotion with a familiarity and sharpness that is hard to beat.

They weren’t just writing songs. Somehow, they managed to distill all the messiness and magic of being human—falling in and out of love, questioning your choices, repeating your mistakes—with lyrics that still ring true almost 100 years later.

So we stick with the Songbook because we believe that, after all this time, they’re still better than just about anything else out there.

Still not convinced?

Let’s talk about love. Because honestly, what’s more universal than love?

Love makes us act silly, gives us sleepless nights, and has us singing songs in the shower—or scrolling through advice threads. It’s the one thing humans have never fully figured out. For all our modern-day thinking—attachment style theories, Instagram wisdom, text etiquette, red flags, green flags, ghosting, benching, breadcrumbing, even “oystering”—the American Songbook already covered it all. In clever, stylish, and more satisfying ways.

Don’t believe us? We’ve pulled from the world of modern dating to show how the words we use today showed up as lyrics in the American Songbook. See for yourself:

Ghosting

From “In the Wee Small Hours Of The Morning”:

When your lonely heart has learned its lesson

You'd be hers if only she would callI

In the wee small hours of the morning

That's the time you miss her most of all

Breadcrumbing

From “Mean to Me”:

I don't know why I stay home

Each night when you say you phone

You don't and I'm left alone

Singin' the blues and cryin'

Oystering

From “It’s All Right With Me”:

You can't know how happy I am that we met

I'm strangely attracted to you

There's someone I'm trying so hard to forget

Don't you want to forget someone too?

Situationship

In “A Fine Romance”:

A fine romance, with no quarrels

With no insults, and all the morals

You're just as hard to land as the Île-de-France

I never get the chance

This is a fine romance

Hardballing

“All Or Nothing At All”:

All or nothing at all

Half a love never appealed to me

If your heart never could yield to me

Then I'd rather have nothing at all

Roaching

“Making Whoopee”:

She sits alone most every night

He doesn’t phone her, he doesn’t write

He says he’s busy, but she says, “is he?”

He’s making’ whoopee

Delusionship

Put so perfectly in “Darn that Dream”:

Darn that dream, I dream each night

You say you love me and hold me tight

But when I awake and you're out of sight

Oh, darn that dream

Pocketing

“Secret Love”:

Once I had a secret love

That lived within the heart of me

All too soon my secret love

Became impatient to be free

And that’s just a fraction. We could go on—stonewalling, friends with benefits, groundhogging, love bombing, zombeing... the Songbook really did it all first.

And so, why the American Songbook?

Because in just a few perfectly turned lines, the songs capture what most of us spend a lifetime trying to say. They make sense of the chaos, find poetry in the pain, and offer elegance in the everyday. With a wink, a sigh, or a clever twist of phrase, they sum up what makes us human: longing, melancholy, heartbreak, joy.

A verse written in 1934 can perfectly describe your Saturday night in 2025 or the thrill of New York when the season turns to fall. A tune from 1940 proves that somethings never change--like the bewitching feeling of falling in love again. The basics of love and heartbreak haven’t changed much. We’re still trying, still falling, still failing. And, somehow, still singing about it.

If you’re hearing these songs for the first time, you might be surprised at just how clever, funny, and moving they are. And if you know every standard by heart, there’s always more to discover. There’s a reason these melodies and lyrics outlast the fads—they capture what it is to be us, with all our hope, humor, and heart.

And trust us: it’s worth hearing every note.

Links to the songs above (and below) are by musicians we've worked with on projects in the past and who you'll see at Songbook Ink as we grow!

"It's All Right With Me" - Tony DeSare

"All Or Nothing At All" - Tony DeSare

"Darn That Dream" - Champian Fulton

"Secret Love" - Vanessa Perea

or listen to clips of some other songs we love